The Penitent Man
by sayain673
Summary: [One-shot?] A girl seeks a Servant to protect her when no one else will. A man seeks redemption for his sins when no one will forgive him. Fate works in odd ways and through the power of the Holy Grail, these two have found each other. Now, they are no longer alone and suffering. Taking solace in the other's company, they will face the coming trials together, as Master and Servant.


This is just a one-shot that I churned out of my over-active brain while typing out the next chapter for both _Blade of the Emperor _and _Dovahkiin of Zero._ This, if anything, is just an "introduction" to the Holy Grail War if such a summoning happened. Maybe if I feel the need, it would turn into a two-shot, but that depends on my typing mood. I was bored out of my skull when I wrote this, so...yeah.

And if I were a contestant in the 5th War and this happened to Illya, I would promptly turn over my Command Seals to Kirei and damn the consequenses. I'm not going into a war with HIM involved, God forbid.

**Disclaimer- **Warhammer 40k and all its affiliates/novels/models belongs to Games Workshop. The Fate/ series belongs to TYPE-Moon. I do not make any money writing this.

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**The Penitent Man**

_...what have I done?_

_What have I done?!_

_My brothers...my kin...billions of men, all dead by my hand. Countless more from my fallen brothers, so eager to follow in my footsteps of destruction. In my selfish wake, I only left ashes and barren wastelands, corpses and burning heaps of bones, casually ignored. Entire planets destroyed, left scarred forever by the orders that killed my kinsmen, issued from a black heart filled to the brim with jealousy._

_...and it was all my fault. All my fault.__  
_

_Had I not accepted the promotion, this would never have come to pass. __Had I not listened to Erebus, this would not have happened._ Countless opportunities to avoid my tragic fate had flashed before my eyes, all simple moments in my pathetic life to turn away from my fall, but I was too proud to turn away. 

_How could I have fallen to the voices of the empyrean, become their slave, their plaything?! I was supposed to be incorruptible! I was His favored son! ____But it was jealousy that they had found in my heart, twisting it to their own gain. How could such a flaw be in my body? I was a template of Father Himself. Why would envy take root in my heart?_

___It was...unforgivable to have jealousy of Father in my heart. How could I be jealous of a Man more greater than all of us?_

___And I had struck Him down and broke Him with my own hands in a fit of blind rage. His blood was on my hands, staining more deeply than my Brothers or any of my kin I turned on. And that was what hurt the most, what fueled my fathomless guilt. I was the pawn of the fell powers that sought to destroy Father. And they had used me well._

_Father...help me! Please forgive me!_

_Silence greeted my howls of despair to the void._

_True terror engulfed me for the first time in my long life. I was alone, left to stew in my endless guilt and torment as the magnitude of what I had done slowly drove me insane, if not further into the depths of madness. No one would hear my wild cries that tore my throat, begging for Father, my Brothers to come and save me. No one would hear my pleas for forgiveness, the need to repent, the desire to turn back time and fix everything. No one would come._

_And no one would forgive me._

-Scene Break-

_I languished for what seemed to be an eternity, screaming all the while and never ceasing my howls as I slowly became insane. I wanted- no _needed_- to spill my hands with the blood of others, to drown my infinite sorrow and fathomless guilt. I needed to lose all my reason in battle, to be unable to think, for only then would I be unable to remember how I betrayed everything Father stood for and the carnage my selfishness caused.__  
_

_Their faces began to come, another torment my mind has decided to inflict upon me, and once more, I see them._

_They come in the chronological order that they had died in my quest to overturn Father. No matter how loud I screamed, I could still hear their voices. Even if I struck them down in a blind fury, they still called out to me, shouting and screaming the question that broke my spirit._

_"Why..."_

_But now they had come all at once, the people of Istavaan III alongside Loyalists who refused to turn, the countless brothers from every legion that I struck down standing. The uncountable trillions of souls being shepherded by a golden figure with wings alongside his Brothers that I had personally slain. But worst of all, He was the last to come when all others vanished, who looked me in the eyes, not with disappointment, but with tears as I writhed and screamed under His gaze._

_"Why would you betray me?"_

_Before I could say anything, debase myself or weep or beg for forgiveness, He would vanish._

_And I would be alone._

**_Silver and iron to the origin. Gem and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone. The ancestor is my great master Schweinorg._**

_I started suddenly at the sound of another voice that was not among the trillions I had slaughtered. They would be wailing, gnashing their teeth and crying as they presented themselves before me and vanish. No, there was no one around me that I could see as a match for the voice, a female, I belatedly noticed. As the voice continued, I saw something in the distance...something faraway..._

_A flare of light burned before my eyes and I cursed, shielding my face from the radiance. The owner of the voice continued to chant, unaware of my plight, intoning in her melodic voice. When vision became bearable, I lowered my gauntlets to see a circle of blood-red, decorated with runes and mystic characters, pulse before my eyes._

**Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword. **

_I cared not anymore what would happen to me. There was no worse fate than languishing in this void, this pit of darkness with only the fell deeds of my arrogance plaguing me unceasingly._

_**Here is my oath. I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead.**_

_I needed to escape my unfathomable guilt, my tormentors._

_**In accordance with the resort of the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer.**_

_I needed to drown my sorrows in the blood of an enemy._

_**You, seven heavens clad in three words of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance-**_

_I needed to lose my reason in the throes of battle._

_-Scene Break-_

It was cold, the snow easily permeating through her thin white dress that clung on her thin frame. But she didn't complain- Grandfather would have her beaten if she came back without accomplishing the task he set out for her to do. They came for her, the first ones circling her and growling as she made preparations. The others came at the scent of her blood slowly drying on the slab of marble.

The wolves growled and snarled as she chanted, and she knew, despite the fact that her red eyes were closed, that they would strike when she was finished. If they did and nothing came out of her ritual, than she would die. It was odd- there was a risk of death, but she felt...content at the fact that her suffering would end in her failure.

The wolves howled as she was finishing the last lines of the aria, taking up the mantle of her incantation where she had paused for breath.

**-Yet, thou serves with thine eyes clouded in chaos. **

They burst forward from their stance, snarling as they sprinted towards an easy prey.

**Thou, bound in the cage of madness. I am she who command those chains.**

A flash of bright red light followed the completion of the Summoning Chant and the wolves yelped in pain at the sudden source of illumination. She shielded her own eyes in turn and screamed as she felt something hot being branded onto every inch of her body. Her scream was answered by the sound of the marble slab shattering, pulverized into dust from the sudden rush of mana.

Just as despair was piercing her heart, a bloodthirsty roar joined the cacophony.

The smoke cloud vanished in the wind that suddenly blew from the center of the circle's remains. Even with the cloud having obscured her vision, she had made out a gargantuan shadow masked behind the dust and debris. Unbridled joy filled her heart. She had done it! She had summoned her own Servant for the War! And it was the mightiest of them all- Hercules! Given the class of Ber-

All her thoughts about the legendary Greek hero faded away as the source of the shadow was revealed.

It was gargantuan, reaching a height of almost four of her size. Clad in the darkest armour and sporting skulls hanging from a mane of fur wrapped around its neck, it stood imposingly before her and the wolves. Three eyes of red and gold stared blankly from the center of the armour, the center eye joining the chest-piece and leg armour in a seamless weld. The golden icon of a wolf snarled at unseen enemies from the shoulder guards, as well as an intricate eight-pointed star that stared into the depths of her soul.

In the giant's hands, two weapons were present. In the right, a massive claw of the most ornate gold, intricate and deadly, was equipped to its limb, wires snaking from the wrist guard into unknown holes and crevices. Its edges were sharp, appearing to cause devastating damage to the victim of its wrath and the claws themselves were large enough to shield its owner. A mace the size of the stone slab was gripped in the left side, black metal composing its shaft and a golden alloy formed the head of the weapon itself, complete with cold spikes of iron.

But blood ran from both weapons, dripping ceaselessly onto the snow and staining the forrest floor with the crimson liquid. It never ceased nor stopped in the few moments after the summoning. The flow of the liquid had no source nor root, as if appearing from the air and eternally gushing from the cold metal in droves, nay, _torrents_.

However, it was the face of the giant that enraptured her. Its skull had wires of its own drilling into the bone, surrounded by a half-helm of black metal and neck shielded by the rim of the first eye, the highest of them all. The face of the giant itself was twisted, that much was apparent by the harsh breaths that emeated from its mouth. Its eyes were pure white, the black pupils and iris barely visible. It was said that the eyes were the window into the soul of another and there was one thing that she saw inside of the giant's eyes.

Bloodlust.

A wolf foolish enough to charge threw itself at her. The giant looked at the beast and she could feel the rage growing underneath the contempt that its gaze held. A whine of pain was the only sound it gave before it was flayed before her eyes. Fur desintigrated under the gaze of the giant, giving way to skin that peeled away, revealing muscle and bone that lay underneath. It was little more than a vivisected animal when it collapsed, twitching in its death throes, at her feet, staining her cotton dress red with its blood.

The pack seemed to have gotten the message and they howled, running away from the monster that killed one of their pack members. When they had disappeared into the depths of the winter forrest, the giant turned to face her, bending its head down to look upon her, its summoner and Master.

The urge to run was replaced by a longing ache that she felt in her heart, resonating from the soul of the Hero she summoned. So sad, so lonely, filled only with the urge to drown its sorrow in killing. Without hesitation and already knowing what to do, she reached out with a frail, white hand and touched the knee-guard of the giant's armour, to where her arm reached the highest.

She heard a grunt of surprise before the figure knelt before her, capturing her eyes of red in its orbs of white.

Tentatively, it held out its right hand, extending one of the bleeding points of the claw towards her body.

She knew that it had the potential to turn her into a bloody scrap of meat that no surgeon, no magic would be able to repair.

She cared not. She was alone.

And he was alone as well.

He was the same as her, alone in existance where no one cared about their wellbeing, weither or not they lived or died. She doubted that he was abandoned by his father as well, the thought going through the back of her mind bitterly at the short memories of her own father who abandoned her for another.

She reached out and took the tip of the extended claw, delecately caressing the bloody metal and smearing her hand with the crimson liquid. A growl emenated from the giant, a soft rumble that was almost a whimper. She gave the giant a soft smile of her own before extending her arms and enveloping her Servant's arm in an close embrace.

She was no longer alone. He was no longer alone.

Where all others had failed, she had finally found a companion to care for her.

_-Scene Break-_

Jubstacheit von Einzbern scowled at his pocket watch for the umpteenth time. He was not a patient man, only exacerbated by the fact that the next Grail War was soon to come and pass, allowing the Einzbern family another chance to reclaim their lost magic. "Achievement" was what kept him going since his failure in the previous wars and he would be damned before he let their chance for reclaiming the Third Magic fail to obtain it.

The girl had been thrown into the snow hours ago, and if his timing was correct, it meant that the wolves inhabiting the forest would soon come out to hunt for prey. It was deemed a necessary catalyst. Deperation was one of the best motivators for summoning a Servant. If the girl did not hurry, she would end up as food for the wolves and there went the family's chances for wining the-

A soft thud interupted his musings, causing the glass of wine in his hand to rumble at the tremor. It was followed by a brief pause before another fell, this time shaking the shelves of his library. The sound was much closer and closing in, with more frequency every time it fell. Yes, this could only be the pattern of...

...footsteps.

In his haste to reach the stairwell, Jubstacheit nearly tripped over his robes. The girl had finally done it! Well, after eight hours in the dead winter, but she still had done it! She had summoned a Heroic Spirit, the great Hercules of Greece for her Servant. He had made sure that the marble was dedicated to the fallen hero's temple before his cohorts "spirited" the stone from the island. Without a doubt, the Servant his latest chance summoned was the demi-god himself!

Now the Einzberns would have their Holy Grail returned to them! There would be nothing to stop them this time ar-

The front doors of the manor exploded inwards, sending the heavy pieces of wood rocketing towards the elderly magus. With a speed that did nothing to compliment the appearance of his body, the Enizbern mage threw himself to the floor as the pieces of the door embeded themselves into the stairs.

"I said knock, you big dummy! Not knock _down_!"

Coughing and sputtering, Jubstacheit slowly rose to his feet, feeling every bone in his body creak in protest to his reflexive dodge. He was about to deliver a fiery retort in the form of magecraft before he realized that a shadow was blocking his view. He stood, dusting the dirt from his robes, and looked up.

His mouth dropped open in shock for the first time in many long years.

The dark armoured giant, who had the little girl scolding him from her position on his shoulder guard, could not have been Hercules.

But at the end of the day, he was impressed. At least the girl had her Berserker, albeit an unorthadox one.

_-Scene Break-_

"Fine!" the little girl pouted. "Berserker! Kill him!"

Shirou had a split second to throw himself and Toshaka to the side before a maul shrieked through the air and burried itself in the pavement where he had been standing. He looked up and almost had a heart attack. The dark figure that appeared behind the pale girl was everything that she wasn't. Where she was small, the man was a giant. Where she was pale, his armor was the pitchest of black. Where she was innocent-looking, the giant's attire screamed death, trophies of skulls dangling from chains and blood dripping ceaselessly from the two weapons.

And while her eyes were red, his were pale white, glimmering with madness yet containing a small iota of reason.

Next to him, Toshaka made a noise that echoed his thoughts of "oh-my-god-what-the-hell-is-that-thing-we're-going-to-die".

"Crush them, Berserker!" the girl said almost cheerfully. The giant's roar juxtaposed his master's mirth as he charged towards the pair of magi.

"Master, get down!" He heard Saber scream as the female knight launched herself into battle against the giant, flinging her coat to the wind and unsheathing her invisible sword. Her blade clashed with the giant's maul that was coming down to crush them. Shirou heard her grunt as the blow connected, driving her back several inches as she took the full brunt of the crushing blow.

Somehow, she managed to throw off the gargantuan maul but she had no time for a respite as the blood-stained claws crackled with electricity and slashed towards her. The knight back-stepped, avoiding the charged weapon by a hair's width. Enraged that she dodged, Berserker continued to drive forward with the maul and electric claws, roaring all the while.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Toshaka shrieked from the side where she had retreated.

"I think it's the Berserker Servant!" Shirou replied as he dodged a stray piece of cinderblock that the mad warrior's mace gouged out of the ground. "At least that's what the girl said!"

"I know that much, you idiot!" she snapped, swiping at him and catching his head with her fist. "It's the Servant that's traded reason for power, but they're supposed to be inferior to the other heroes!"

As if the giant heard them, he roared and lifted his claw towards the pair of them. Lightning crackled from the wires and tubes that arced through the gauntlet, but a ball of energy was forming in the palm of the giant. Shirou's eyes widened in shock while the girl next to him dropped her mouth open in a perfect "o". Letting loose a guttral howl, a fireball sprang to life in Berserker's hand. He threw it, and the missile rocketed towards the pair.

"Master!" Saber shouted, maneuvering her position to block the deadly projectile. The fireball struck her sword and Shirou saw her eyes widen as she staggered from the impact. But with a shout of her own, she pushed against the flaming missile, dispelling it as she cut through the attack.

"He can use magic, too?!" Shirou heard Toshaka's voice tinged with hysteria at that revelation, but he supposed that she had good reason to panic. In addition to near-impenetrable armor, the moving landmass could also use magecraft. "And he's not Caster? Who is this guy?!"

"Indeed," Saber growled, leveling her blade and pointing the tip to the mad warrior. "Someone- no, something- like you shouldn't exist! Just what kind of Servant-"

Her question was interupted as the warrior charged again. She gritted her teeth and followed suit, meeting his maul and claws with her sword. Shirou watched as the two Servants fought, one blue and small, the other black and hulking. The knight's attacks were swift and agile, matching the warrior's powerful and devestating combinations of maul and claws, but Shirou saw that she was slowly being driven into a corner.

"We're leaving, Emiya-kun." Toshaka said coldly, grabbing Shirou's hand as they retreated from the clash of the titans.

"Wha?" he responded, confused as to why they were leaving Saber behind. "Wait, Toshaka! We can't just run away-"

"Don't you get it, idiot?" she snapped. "We're of no use to her if we stay, even if we help!"

"But what about Saber?!"

"She'll be able to find an opening and exit! We need to come up with a plan to take down that monster!" Even as she said it, Shirou didn't see much stock in the idea she had. "Without one, we're dead anyway!"

"Maybe, but-" his reply was cut off at the appearance of the purple-clad girl, who seemed to appear out of thin air before them.

"Where are you two sneaking off to?" she asked playfully. "Isn't it rude to leave someone else behind?"

"Thinking of a strategy to beat Berserker?" she asked, stopping Toshaka dead in her tracks as she continued to stare at the small magus in front of the pair. "Because whatever you do, you can't beat him!"

"What makes you say that, you little runt?" Toshaka responded angrily.

"Because he's the Emperor's favorite son, of course!" the Master giggled, as if enoying a private joke. "He's none other than Horus Lupercal!"

The name meant nothing to Shirou and judging by Toshaka's facial reaction when they looked at the other, it didn't have any signifigance to her either. The only Horus that he was familiar with was from a book that Kiritsugu gave him about Egypt, specifically about their myths. He seriously doubted that the hulking giant was the same entity as the falcon-son of Osiris, god of the Underworld.

"Servants are the spirits of heroes called to the modern world!" she continued, spining around in a circle and humming to the rythmn of Berserker's howls and strikes. "Their spiritual body, their essence, is strengthened by the achievements of people living in their time. The more famous the hero's name, the more powerful the Servant!

"But what makes Berserker special that he's a hero from far into the future, not the past, where there are trillions of humans living in the heavens of space!" she happily exclaimed, ignoring the pair's look of shock and indignation at the preposterous claim. A Servant from the future? That sounded like a poorly-written sci-fi. "And even though he's not in his time, he's the most famous of his brothers!

"After all, who would forget the trillions of humans he slew to warn his Father about the dangers of Chaos?" she sighed happily, closing her eyes and appearing to be lost in a daydream. "What a hero my Berserker is!"

"Trillions of humans?" Toshaka shouted, horrified at the number that the girl had given them. Shirou felt the same feeling of terror that gripped his fellow Master. It was odd though, one second they were doubting, but with the girl's revelation, combining the giant's size and strength...he shuddered mentally. "How can a hero kill trillions of humans-"

"And make it to the Throne of Heroes?" she finished, tauntingly, waving her finger in a teaching maner to the older girl. "It's simple: Horus is an anti-hero! And you have no chance to stand up against him! Compared to Saber, she's way out of his league!"

As if on cue, the body of the female knight was knocked against the concrete wall. "Saber!" Shirou cried out as he rushed to her. She was bruised and bloodied -though it was hard to tell if it was hers or from the giant's weapons- whereas Berserker had naught a scratch on his black armor. She was struggling to stand up as he approached her.

"Too bad." Toshaka suddenly said, holding her outstretched hand towards the pale girl. "You were careless and left your Servant. You lose."

As he was helping Saber up from the wall, Shriou saw Toshaka's _Gandr_ race from her hand towards Berserker's master. The purple-clothed girl scoffed and held her own hand out in turn, creating a barrier that blocked the shot. "With something like that-" she began before her eyes widened and turned to the side.

The resulting explosion from Archer's porjectile coughed up a great deal of smoke and dirt. Shirou could've sworn that he saw his classmate jumping up and down, masked by the cloud. It was low, but going after the Master in this case was probably the only way to avoid shedding more blood. _Trillions of humans..._He swore that he would never let that happen.

But as the dust settled, an armored boot stepped out of the cloud and Berserker, now identified as Horus Lupercal, roared to the night sky, lowering his hand that projected a barrier of his own. "I forgot to mention!" the girl behind him said. "It isn't magic; it's psychic powers! Being aligned to the Chaos gods has its perks!"

[To be continued?]

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**Ok...notes are now here for the sake of keeping the top spoiler free because of the Servant's identity.**

**1) Yes, Illya summoned Horus, the Warmaster of the Great Crusade. I know that the Emperor "destroyed his body and soul", but what does the Emperor know about the Throne of Heroes? And yes, I made Horus and anti-hero. In a sense, it does have logic to it that his actions [namely, the Horus Heresy] made the Imperium ever vigilant and aware to the dangers of Chaos.**

**2) Illya found out about Horus via the dream sequences. Two months of those dreams is enough to intimately know your Servant.**

**3) Here are Horus' stats.**

**Str- A [A primarch, duh.]**

**End- S [Above reason]**

**Agi- A [Gotta love Power Armour]**

**Man- A [The Grail has confused psychic powers with magic]**

**Luk- E [I think this is oddly appropriate, don't you?]**

**Mad Enchantment- B [Most of sanity gone, but enough remains to feel affection for Illya]**

**Noble Phantasms:**

**Warmaster's Talon- Lightning Claws**

**Worldbreaker- A Mace**

_**If you have any comments, threats, flames, criticisms, etc. please don't hesitate to PM me or post a review. I will accept it with my head held low and my body and mind humble. Just try not to overly curse me if I did anything overtly stupid.**_

_**I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**_


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